SPRINGDALE -- Students go back to school in about a month, and Springdale School District officials and School Board members are preparing for the year.
Board members and officials spoke to new administrators, discussed an instructional plan and school year calendar at Tuesday's School Board meeting.
At A Glance
Other Business
• Tamekia Brown, principal at Central Junior High School, spoke to the school board about Darren Vaughn of her faculty. Vaughn received the 2014 Patricia Behring Teacher of the Year award for Arkansas from the National History Day organization.
• Sara Ford, principal at J.O. Kelly Middle School announced her school received a 21st Century Community Learning Center grant for an after school program. School officials will receive about $660,000 over the course of five years.
Source: Staff Report
Jared Cleveland, deputy superintendent for personnel, introduced two administrators during the meeting. He introduced Shannon Tisher, one of last year's assistant principals at Har-Ber High School, as the new principal at Southwest Junior High School. He also introduced Megan Witonski as the district's new assistant superintendent for innovation, accountability, science, technology, engineering and math.
Witonski spoke to the board and expressed her excitement about getting to work in the district.
"It was so good to come back to Springdale," she said. "I just couldn't stay away."
Witonski accepted an administrator position with the district last summer before being chosen for the job of assistant commissioner for learning services at the Arkansas Department of Education.
Witonski left the position in Little Rock because her family lives in Springdale, and she wanted to live closer to them, she said. She also missed working close to students and seeing how her work impacts them.
Witonski has knowledge about education on the state level, such as the new teacher and principal evaluation systems the district will use this year, said Kathy McFetridge, board member. She explained she was disappointed last summer when Witonski left for Little Rock, but has since realized the experience Witonski gained will help the district.
"Maybe there's a reason she went to Little Rock for one year," she said.
The instructional plan discussed at the meeting isn't a week-by-week plan of what will be done, but an overall plan of the goals for the year, said Clay Hendrix, associate superintendent for curriculum, instruction, innovation and technology. The plan changes from year to year.
The last page of the plan is a flow chart showing what officials are trying to do, how they will do it, what the results are from those actions and how it will impact the district. The impacts on the page are achievement and graduation, which lead to recognition.
The body of the plan explains each part of the flow chart. The impacts are also explained. Officials want to increase student achievement and the graduation rate, so the district and students can receive more recognition for the work they accomplish.
The calendar for the 2014-15 school year, which was discussed at the meeting, shows Aug. 18 as the first day of school and May 26, 2015 as the last day of school. The calendar also notes that May 28, 2015 through June 3, 2015 can be used as inclement weather makeup days if needed. These days would only be used if the students miss more than five days of school because of weather.
NW News on 07/16/2014